Folsom Prison Blues
by flyingdutchman08
Summary: "She was stronger than they were. She had to be." Season 3 with Fem!Daryl. Fem!Daryl/Rick pairing.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Walking Dead.

_Folsom Prison Blues_

_Prologue: Darcy Dixon_

No one who had ever met Darcy Dixon would think her helpless, not unless they wanted their faces to be imprinted in the pavement, growing up with a brother like Merle (who was all but infamous in their little neighborhood) had its ups and downs, mostly downs, but if nothing else, it had made her _adaptable_, so she could guarantee her place in the new darwinistic reality her world had become.

She had been used to people thinking the worse of her after they got acquainted with her brother, she expected it almost, so it surprised her when Carol started to concern herself with the amount of sleep she was getting, or whether she ate that day. Maybe Carol saw something in her, maybe the despair over the loss of her daughter made her latch onto someone who reminded her of her little girl, and Darcy really tried hard not to think of what Carol saw in her – a broken girl, come from a broken home, with an asshole for a father and no mother – because really, what kind of girl would be allowed to grow up like her if her mama was still around? Maybe she saw the wild little girl that reacted as aggressively as any animal trapped in a corner would, a reflection to what her own little girl would become had she not been there to stand between Sophia and Ed.

She tasted bile in the back of her throat – thinking about Sophia usually brought that reaction in her, made her think about things that she though wouldn't affect her anymore, her father, _Merle_.

Her brother was – _is_, the stubborn part of her mind insisted – almost fifteen years older than her, the long track of stillborns and miscarriages that preceded her birth had taken its toll on her mother in both mind and body, and Darcy couldn't remember a time in her childhood when the memory of her mother wasn't accompanied by the ever present aroma of alcohol. Between her mother and her father, Merle was the one she actually depended on, the one she needed, a fact that he wouldn't show any hesitation to bring up or throw in her face in later years. Darcy used to think that she would have killed for the white-picket-fence kind of family, a family like Juliette Barnell's, her little friend from middle school with whom she spent one thanksgiving with. Juliette's parents were sober and happy and always smiling, and her grandparents were alive and kind and she would fantasize that she was Juliette's sister, and that they were her family, laughing and telling embarrassing stories about each other from when they were little; she would still fantasize about that, even when she got a beating for spending the holiday with "those fucking democrats", even after Juliette and her family left.

Merle didn't share those dreams, if he did have any dreams at all, he kept it to himself. When she was little, he would tell her that as soon as he got a good job, an actual paying job, he would take her and leave; as the years passed the words changed: "as soon as I have enough money saved up", "as soon as Danny pays me what he owes", "as soon as I get out of this fucking prison". She was still very little when Merle got dishonorably discharged from the army and went for his first tour in prison, but she remembered the second tour well enough, and the others that followed… eventually her brother stopped making her promises, empty as they were, and she was left to watch as his eyes grew colder and his smile crueler. When their mother died and the house burned down Merle was no longer part of the picture; she was thirteen and her brother twenty-seven when they met again at her funeral, he went back home – however little there was left of it – with her. He didn't stay of course, not with their worthless father still breathing, and she was left alone again sooner rather than later.

Her father, abusive drunk that he was, soon started losing the interest in beating her when she was out of the house more often than not, and female visitors started to become a more frequent sight in her house, which prompted her to stay out of the house for longer than she normally would, sometimes camping for days in the woods near her home, and only returning for food or to use the bathroom. Sometimes her father would leave for weeks and she would have the house to herself, in these times she would call Merle (when he was not locked up or occupied otherwise), and he would come to stay for a few days and help her hone her skill with the crossbow; it was the happiest she remembered being for a long time.

When she was nineteen she started going out with a dark skinned boy she met in community college, it was not the first boyfriend that she had, but it was the first one she really cared about, the first man she gave herself to. Their secret romance lasted for a year and a half – by which point she was almost giving herself a heart attacks with the recurring nightmares she had about what Merle would do if he ever found out, which prompted her to end it. She graduated in business management and started working in a little law firm in Atlanta, she started low – the business assistant's assistant, but for once in her life the money that paid for her food was her own, not her brother's monthly drug-stained dollars, nor her father's invalid's benefit (for a work accident almost ten years ago – best thing that happened to her father since prescription drugs).

It was not the life anyone would have wanted, but it was the one she had, and while she knew it could be worse, that the abuse could have easily taken a different turn, so far life had not thrown her anything she could not handle.

Until the fucking apocalypse happened.

When she turned thirty, with a little apartment all of her own just outside the city limits, she found that she was finally happy with her life. When her father died of cirrhosis, she could barely bring herself to come to his funeral, but this time around when she left the cemetery and went home with her brother, Merle stayed. In. Her. Fucking. Apartment. Merle was neither an easy nor an enjoyable person to live with; the drinking and the drugs almost made her think she was living with her father again, but try as she might, she could not resent her brother; she could resent the man he had become, the absent figure in her life, but she could not resent her brother, the one who taught her how to track and shoot, how to hunt and clean her kills. Pathetic as it may be, Merle was the closest thing to a paternal figure she ever had, and as he had literally no idea how to approach a sister, he had simply always treated her as if she had been born with a dick instead – which made it really easy for him to beat the crap out of her when she found his stash in her teen years.

Merle lived in and out of her life, her couch was forever his bed (that is, when he actually managed to make it to the couch before collapsing) and it started to become familiar somehow. Merle didn't care to learn about what she did for a living, and she never asked where he spent the day, she knew; in fact the only real question she posed to her brother was: _"how could your dumbass catch the clap, _again_?"_ When the news took a different tune she and her brother were packed and ready to bail as the government advised the population at large to stay in their homes.

She and Merle grouped with others when the shit finally hit the fan, and she found that her and her brother quickly became an invaluable resource in the little camp; the city folk couldn't skin a dead animal if their lives depended on it - which it did now, so Darcy separated herself from her feelings on the matter (which were telling her to gut that skinny bitch Lori for trying to make her do _laundry_), and resigned herself to what needed to be done – chores. After all, safety in numbers, right?

Her chores initially plainly consisted of hunting and skinning after she made it clear that she would put an arrow through Olive Oil's head if she was forced to touch other people's laundry, didn't matter who she was fucking -which brings her to Shane; she wasn't unfamiliar with cops, she spend a few nights of her own in the wrong side of a cell door, she just didn't know at first exactly _what_ it was about him that made her stand on edge, but she didn't like him, she had learned to trust her instincts, and future experiences would eventually prove her right.

Rick was different.

She didn't expect to like him as much as she did – and it definitely wasn't love at first sight either; he had left her brother for dead, she had attacked him (the squirrel-throwing was not among her proudest moments), and he treated her as if she were a time-bomb most days (maybe he was right to, she wasn't the most reasonable of people when armed and in a potentially dangerous situation). It didn't start suddenly also, although she couldn't remember when she started having such a dramatic change of heart, perhaps it was when she heard him scream her name after Andrea shot her, or after Sophia – when he came to visit her little corner of the camp. By the time of the threat that came with the arrival of Randall, she was devoted to him; she asked Rick for a few minutes alone with the whimpering idiot and came back with the information he wanted, stood by him when the decision was made and was ready to carry out the execution had Rick asked it of her - which she did, just with Dale instead of Randall.

There was certainly a lot to love in Rick, he was not just handsome, he was kind, he was honest and loyal to a fault, he stood for what was right and had the confidence and belief that made people turn to him and seek him out as their natural leader. She knew she loved him because of the way he treated her, after the farm fell he started looking for her more often than ever; they discussed strategies over road maps, and she found herself talking about her life - Merle, her previous job, and when she would lapse into silence he would begin a tale of his own. His tone of voice changed when he spoke to her, which was more often than any of the others in the group, and his eyes softened when she made a joke about something or the other (mostly about Glenn and Maggie, because making the chinaman flustered was about the easiest way for entertainment these days).

Making fun of Glenn had become her new favorite sport ever since she found out that he had harbored a little crush for her since before the CDC. She used to pair up with him when they went to the streams – their own little "shower rotation" – just to appreciate the way his face would go beet red and his eyes would try to look at everywhere but her. Since Maggie came to the fold she had expanded her spectrum, but Maggie was not the type to get embarrassed easily; the little country girl was tougher than she looked and had the potential to be a lot more crass than she usually sounded. Some people had a type – Glenn's at least was consistent.

Whatever was the new place that she had taken in Rick's life, Lori had made no secret of her displeasure, some nights were alive with the sounds of Rick and Lori's not-so-quiet "discussion" while other nights were steely silent, and she avoided being around anyone, leaving to hunt at random moments; it didn't help matters that Rick usually went with her, but she didn't blame him, she usually avoided Lori about as much as she avoided Shane, if she were in his position she would be crawling up the metaphorical walls. Back at the quarry, or even sometimes on the farm, Lori seemed to think that she could boss Darcy around, and it made her want to pound her fist into something – preferably her face; back at the quarry it usually ended with Darcy blowing up on Lori and Shane blowing up on her.

It used to annoy the hell out of her when Rick would turn a blind eye to his friend's actions (another reason for her self-imposed exile –_she was just so sick of everyone's bullshit_), and would still take his word in higher regard. Eventually the former deputy began to show more of his true colors, and the sheriff started looking for her input, which in turn made Shane look as if he had sucked on an especially sour lemon. After the farm was overrun her role within the group changed to that of second-in-command, and she appreciated the closeness it brought to her and Rick.

To be fair, the winter had brought all of them closer, made all of them tougher, even little Carl, who started to grow a crush the size of a small semi on Beth (another good source of entertainment for her). And even though she started to care for them _almost_ as much as she did for Carol, it did not compare to the way she felt about their leader, especially after that one night three months ago when they camped in a little meadow, and Rick had crawled into her tent after he finished watch, and she had warmed him from the cold outside.

She still does on most nights. The group didn't comment on what was obviously happening, and kept their opinions to themselves; Lori avoided looking in her general direction and resented Rick from afar (but that was fine, he did the same for her), and she wasn't about to accommodate her just because the idiot got herself knocked up (ever since she and Rick started spending their nights together, she had scavenged through a lot more pharmacies than before). She and Carl had grown closer after she took it upon herself to teach him how to shoot, and he had not voiced any objections to her new relationship with his father; he was always happy and eager to learn with her, and surprisingly it pleased her more than it annoyed her to spend time with him, and suddenly she was trying to teach him how to track –which he did worse than Glenn (and that one couldn't track for shit), but still.

All of them had grown during the winter months on the road, even Darcy, whose life had been one lesson in endurance after another.

She was stronger than they were. She had to be.

Her upbringing had prepared her for this - she was made to survive, and looking at what the world had become now, she was suddenly not quite as envious of Juliette's life as she once had been.

.

.

.

**A/N: in celebration for the upcoming second half of season 3, I answered to my own prompt on TWD kink meme! YAY!  
I really, really wanted a season 3 fic with a genderbent Daryl, focusing on the growing relationship between Rick and Daryl (much to Lori's despair) – and I decided to have a go at it (since it was just ****not leaving my brain alone****), sooo I turned their bromance into a romance (and while I actually enjoy Rick/Daryl slash, there are so few fics with fem!Daryl out there - and genderbend fics are a serious guilty pleasure of mine).  
I haven't really decided where I'm going with this; I am labeling this fic AU, even though I'll try to stick to cannon mostly. Also, in case some are wondering about the timeline, I made Daryl – Darcy – younger (so instead of Merle being in juvie that time when Daryl got lost in the woods, he was in prison), Merle looks about 47-50 to me, so that would make Darcy be in her early thirties in my story.  
The title is from Johnny Cash's song "Folsom Prison Blues".  
Enjoy and Review!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

The owl left a bad aftertaste in her mouth, though it did help to soothe the growling in her stomach.

They didn't have anywhere else to go, she could see the tension in Rick's shoulders where he was bent over the map; they were trapped.

The walkers had grown larger in number during the winter, and they were appearing in larger groups than before, surrounding them; they were cut off with walkers at all sides except in places that they already scavenged.

Lori was late, even with all the running they did these days it still didn't trigger the birth, it was enough to put everyone on edge, even though the idea that at any moment the contractions would start was even worse. They needed a place to settle down, if only for a few weeks.

And then what? When the baby was born (_if_ the baby was born, and she hated herself a little for thinking that) how would they survive? How long until the child learned that their cries could mean their lives?

It was no use to anyone thinking of that, especially no her, so she rearranged the crossbow and counted her arrows – she would have to make more soon, maybe there was still a little game left in these woods, they could have a somewhat decent dinner at least.

And maybe she could smooth Rick's frown while she was at it.

* * *

Rick had a small satisfied smile in his face and she was still dislodging twigs from her hair when they saw it.

"What a shame." A prison, overrun from the looks of it, walkers dressed in prison jumpsuits all over the courtyard. She turned to Rick, and felt her stomach plunge at the expression on his face.

She looked back at the prison with a grimace on her face "Ain't no way Rick"

He turned to look at her "Darcy, it's perfect, if we take that field…"

"What about the walkers? The place could be overrun, there's more to the yard then what we can see, the gates inside the prison-"

"We have to have a look then, we could cut our way into one of the fences, have a look at the gates. Darcy, we can do this." She could see that from the look in his face that he would not be dissuaded; and what if they did it? Rick saw them through winter, if she trusted anyone's judgment, it was his.

"When there's a will there's a way?"

He snorted "You could say. We're still here."

She smiled and took his hand, tugging him back the way they came "C'mon, let's share with the rest of the class."

"But we didn't get anything."

"And whose fault was that?" She smirked at him.

* * *

They did it. And before nightfall, just as Rick predicted, Darcy was still feeling the excitement of the accomplishment as the others sat around the fire to eat.

Rick was patrolling the fence, looking for any weak spots, but after his third time around she thought that maybe he was just using the excuse to be away from Lori.

Things hadn't exactly gotten worse on the Rick-Lori front, they definitely hadn't improved though; Rick and Lori could go a whole day without trading so much as a word, but at least there weren't any more fights; the whole thing had a strange air of conformism to it, but the longing looks Lori shot Rick made Darcy feel like a villain, a thief – stealing a life that was not hers to have…a husband, a son.

Darcy would have passed Carl's attitude to his mother as teenage hormones had it not been for the real anger in his eyes; he was growing up too soon (something Darcy could relate to only too well) and it hurt Lori to bear it, to see what this world was making of her son, what it would make of her unborn child. Carl came to her instead, Darcy was a firm believer that in this world if you were not predator you were prey, so she (and Rick - it was a joint effort) trained his aim (which he was already amazing at, not that she would ever tell him so, the few times she slipped and praised him over something she was surprised his head didn't get stuck between the trees), though he was still hopeless with the crossbow (at least he didn't present a threat to everybody else in camp while carrying it, unlike a Korean she knew).

She turned to help Carol, who was climbing the overturned prison bus where Darcy was keeping watch. She reached down and handed Darcy the little bowl she brought with her.

"I know it's not much, but if I didn't bring you something you wouldn't eat at all." She said. Darcy huffed and looked at where the others were gathered.

"Guess lil' Shane over there has quite the appetite" Carol snorted and turned to look at her.

"Don't be mean." She avoided Darcy's eyes "She hasn't been talking to me, you know? The closer we get to the birth, the more she pulls away."

Darcy huffed a laugh "I think she just resents you for not letting me starve." Carol chuckled along with her.

"If I don't take care of you, who will?" Darcy didn't have the heart to tell her that she didn't need Carol mothering her, that she wasn't her daughter – it was the kind of thing she would have said in the past to keep her at a distance, but not anymore, she appreciated the care Carol had for her. "_He_ won't take care of you."

She didn't need to ask who, and suddenly she felt a familiar anger began to stir hot in her chest; afraid that her next words would hurt Carol she just pursed her lips and looked away.

She heard Carol sight. "Look, Rick has gotten us a lot farther than I ever thought he would, I'll give him that. Shane certainly couldn't have done it. But I worry about you, about you with him. Don't get me wrong, we're family, all of us - but Rick's changed; I know that he cares about you, I see the way he smiles at you, he's more relaxed than I ever see him when he's with you and he may even love you, but-" She paused.

Darcy turned to her "But what?" she tried not to bark the words out.

"But I know that a part of him still loves Lori." Carol finished quietly.

"If he loved Lori he wouldn't come to me." She didn't want to be here anymore, she didn't want to hear it.

"You care more than you let show, I just don't want to see you get hurt Darcy." Carol smiled at her and brushed back a few strands of her short hair "Come on, looks like Beth is having a sing-along."

She walked back to camp with Carol by her side, she wouldn't fault Carol for worrying about her, it was a refreshing change in her life, but it made her feel worse than ever whenever she thought about Lori. Was Carol right? Did Rick still love his wife? He certainly _felt_ responsible for her (made sure she fed, asked Hershell to keep an eye on her), but he never showed any hints of lingering affection towards her, haven't for a long time – hell, he barely looked at her anymore.

He was different with Darcy, he _talked_ to her, smiled at her, and sometimes he even laughed with her. He was calmer, less weighted down by his responsibilities (both when awake and asleep); it was enough for her, the way they were now, she hasn't felt this content since before the dead started munching on the living.

But it didn't stop Carol's words from running through her mind when she saw the little family of three sitting together, she was the odd piece that didn't fit in the picture, like most places she's ever been to, there wasn't a place for her there. Even thought she loved him, even if she cared for Carl, it wasn't _her_ family.

She was startled out of her thoughts by Rick's voice.

"We all better get some sleep, I'll keep watch over there. We've got a big day tomorrow." He looked around at the questioning faces "Look, I know we're all exhausted, but we gotta push just a little bit more; looks like this place fell pretty early, their supplies must still be mostly intact. There's an infirmary, a commissary-"

"An armory" Darcy said, Rick looked at her gratefully and continued to relay the plan for the next morning.

This place could be everything they dreamed to find – a fortress, maybe things would get better if Rick didn't have to constantly worry about his pregnant wife, maybe Lori would be happier with concrete walls around her to defend her and her children.

She laid down to sleep to the sound of Rick and Lori's argument and anticipated tomorrow.

* * *

Tomorrow came and brought a clusterfuck with it.

It started as Rick predicted it would, they cleared what they could and locked the inside gates, pushing inside regardless of the possible exterior damage the prison might have undergone.

But they made it. They found their place, it was a cage and made Darcy stand on edge, but the look on Rick's face made it worth it.

They fought side-by-side as they always did these days, Rick looking back to make sure she was still beside him and crying out for her gave her a hot feeling that had nothing to do with the burning in her legs and shoulders from the exertion.

The others settled in, having their pick on the cells (which Darcy immediately discarded despite Carol's offer on sharing, if Rick was going to make her live in a prison she would be as free as she could inside it) and exhaustion drove them all to a restless sleep, as she laid down to do the same she felt a strong arm wrapping around her waist from behind and Rick's warm breath on her neck, and she closed her eyes with a smile on her face.

A good day, finally.

So of course something was bound to happen.

The next morning they were out to learn the layout of the prison and to find the supplies they sorely needed, the ones they found on the guards Darcy wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, but she had to agree with Carl - the smoke bombs _were_ cool, if a little unhelpful for their particular kind of mobs.

After a brief pep talk and a "no Carl you're not coming with us" speech in which he looked at Darcy as if she would protest his father's decision and she responded with her patented "what the hell are you looking at me for" expression, they were off.

The dark corridors inside the prison looked like an underground maze in a crazy-ass horror house, and started to feel like one after the first group of walkers they ran into.

She tried to control her raging thoughts and focus: Glenn and Maggie were missing (how the hell did they lose two people?), she turned to Rick, ignoring the bad feeling in her gut that told her they would lose another of their own and tried not to look at Hershell.

At Rick's nod she turned to light the way back, now devoid of walkers, and tried to make out Glenn and Maggie from the shadows.

And then Hershell got bit.

Darcy wouldn't be able to tell exactly what happened afterwards, the events were lost in the middle of Maggie's screams and Hershell's blood – _so much blood._

She found herself half running (_always running_) and half dragged along, and she couldn't tell if the noises she heard were from the walkers (cramping the once vacated corridor), Maggie and Hershell or the blood rushing through her ears.

They crashed into an empty room, Darcy and T-Dog holding their weight against the door while Hershell was laid out on the floor between two steel tables.

They were in the cafeteria.

She almost huffed out a laugh; they found the cafeteria after all.

She knelt by Rick's side as soon as T-Dog passed the poker through the handles, she met his eyes – wide, terrified, determined – and started undoing Hershell's belt, wrapping it around his leg as Rick's hand inches toward the axe.

"There's only one way to keep him alive." He met Maggie's terrified eyes, who nodded with teary eyes and held down her father's torso, Darcy and Glenn did the same with his arms and legs.

Hershell's screams were almost inhuman and made Darcy gnash her teeth together, he trashed and shivered, finally losing consciousness before Rick made the final swing and separated his leg from the rest of his body.

Was this what Merle sounded like when he chopped off his arm?

The belt around his leg was clenched tight but there was still more blood than she would have believed pooling on the floor, getting bigger by the second. She chanced a look in Ricks direction at the sound he made, seeing him run his hand through his hair, eyes wide, hands trembling and hoped that this wouldn't be another blow to the man's sanity.

She was startled from the sight of blood by a sudden movement in her periphery; lifting her crossbow from the ground she hissed at Rick, who had caught her movement "Duck."

She stood up over her friends and aimed the crossbow at five men in prison jumpsuits, five very _alive_ men, who were looking at them with expressions that ranged from awe to horror at the gory display; the little man in the middle was the one who voiced their collective thought:

"Holy shit."


End file.
